In the closing scene of episode 8 of Netflix’s Making a Murderer, viewers hear Brendan Dassey’s mom coaching him on his upcoming trial. “That’s what you need to tell them,” she says. “The truth.” But the truth isn’t that simple.

While the first few episodes of Netflix’s Making a Murdererare marked by confusion, the emotions you feel watching eps. 7 and 8 are more certain — but also more hopeless. The evidence doesn’t seem to hold up, and the closing arguments, verdicts, and reactions from the Avery family are both gripping and painful to…

While the first half of Making a Murderer examines the ways in which cops can betray someone, episodes 5 and 6 largely concern themselves with how, via the justice system, a person could gain the upper hand.

How does someone become a killer? That’s the question implicit in the title of Netflix’s Making a Murderer and a central theme that weaves its way through each episode. Was the grisly murder of Teresa Halbach set in motion with Steven Avery’s wrongful conviction, or was he framed?

Netflix’s new true-crime docuseries opens with a homecoming. Steven Avery’s hair is buzzed, his white beard is long and wiry, and he feels wonderful — or so he says. His mother hugs him hard. He smiles shyly. But the scene’s exuberance belies both the brutality and the downright strangeness of the complicated case…